


Broken

by timtom



Series: Moving Maeve [2]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Angst, Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, In which Spencer has to begin to try to sort through his guilt, M/M, Not quite boyfriends yet, Survivor Guilt, They kinda cuddle, and Derek helps, and basically begin to move on, and sadness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-28
Updated: 2013-09-28
Packaged: 2017-12-27 20:20:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/983184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timtom/pseuds/timtom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to The Only One in which Spencer has to deal with his guilt and try to move one from Maeve's death and Derek has to help him. Basically: talking in the middle of the night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken

**Author's Note:**

> Omg there was such a huge rapport last time I mean by my standards of my work anyway, and wow I feel the pressure to do well now. I thought it would be better to upload this separately since the tags would be dramatically different. I really hope this fic is satisfactory, because I didn't really know how to keep going without relieving Spencer of at least /some/ of his guilt first, and uhhhhh I'm really worried now. Anyway, enjoy!

“Spencer, you’ll be with Morgan up in Room 201, Hotch will be with Rossi in Room 202, and I’ll be with Emily in room 204.” JJ said, and gave the keys out respectively.

“Okay, everyone get a good night’s rest, we have a lot to do tomorrow.” Hotch said as he and Rossi picked up their bags and filed into the elevator. Derek followed them and Spencer squeezed in last.

“Night guys!” JJ called and kissed Spencer on the cheek once they’re all on the floor and found their rooms  – “Night Spence.”

Everyone still treated Spencer rather gingerly at times, especially at night; especially JJ. They were like siblings – they studied together for the force and must’ve known each other more than half a decade, which was more than anyone in this team knew each other, apart from Rossi. Rossi was eternal – Rossi knew everybody _and_ their grandmothers.

“You don’t mind if I get the first shower, do you kid?” Derek asks as soon as they get into their room. Spencer shakes his head.

“No, go right ahead. I’m more of a morning shower person anyway.” Spencer says as he throws his bag onto his bed. “You know, recently dermatology researchers have discovered that just like the beneficial bacteria in your gut, our skin also contains beneficial germs that can teach our own skin cells to make antibiotics, which in turn kills off the bad bacteria, so maybe leaving a shower off until morning is better because the bacteria can get to work during the night when our body is healing itself.”

“Alright, alright – it ain’t a contest here, Doc.” Derek laughs as he shucks off his shirt and gets into the shower, the water scolding his skin just a little bit, the way he likes it.

“I know, I’m just, I’m just saying!” Spencer calls back, his voice muffled by the walls and the sound of the water. Derek smirks against the soothing warmth and rubs the nape of his neck, where all the tension is being washed off.

“Also did you know that it’s not the bath itself that makes people lethargic and drowsy, but the dramatic drop in temperature after a person leaves the water that triggers the decrease in the release of serotonin and norepinephrine which is what keeps up alert and awake?” Spencer calls after he hears the water shut off. “So, essentially –”

“Again, not a competition.” Derek stresses jokingly as he comes out of the bathroom and the steam following him, in his pyjama pants and a t-shirt, and rubbing the towel over his bald head – he doesn’t really need it, but he’s always found the stimulation comforting. Spencer was pulling a loose black t-shirt over his own head, already in a pair of plaid pyjama pants. He was, however, sitting on Derek’s bed, and his own bag as on the floor.

“Reid, what are you doing?” Derek asks, throwing his towel onto his own bag beside his bed. He felt like warm cotton, and all he wanted to do was to curl up and properly sleep. Reid looked at him once he had covered that pale flesh on which Derek’s eyes might’ve rested for a little-bit-longer-than-is-enough-for-normal, with those (Clooney) puppy eyes and he looked a bit sheepish as he runs his fingers through his hair.

“There are some very questionable stains on my bed and I don’t think I want people rummaging around our room at this time of night keeping us up just so they can change the sheets on my bed.” Spencer says. “They can do it in the morning when we’re away working on the case.” And the second sentence comes out almost as a quiet question, in which Spencer had invested all of his hopes and dreams.

“Um,” Derek manages out, and then his bed seemed much too small for both him and Spencer, even with Spencer’s slight frame. “It’s – it’s okay, I can manage the couch for one night.” And that was a lie, because it was a small couch, and he was a big (as Garcia put it) chocolate angel of gorgeous.

Spencer’s eyes were suddenly very wide, and he scrambled to the edge of the bed near him, Spencer’s hands reaching for Morgan’s. “No, no it’s okay! You don’t – you don’t have to sleep on that, thing. I was just – I just – I wanted to ask if I could share with you, just for tonight, and there won’t be anything, it’ll just be us as friends, sharing a bed, because mine had absorbed bodily fluids, is all …” and Spencer’s sentence trailed off as he read how he had killed the mood, if any mood there was, on Derek’s face. “Sorry.”

“No it’s fine, it’s all … fine, kid.” Derek laughs, and Spencer moves to make room for him on the bed, sitting back against the edge.

“Thanks Morgan.” He smiles, almost shyly, and Derek climbs under the covers as Spencer does the same, the softness immediately lulling him to sleep.

“Night kid.”

“Good night, Derek.”

Then it was the darkness after Spencer switches of the light that pulls sleep just a little bit out of Derek’s grasp, and he lies there a bit too obvious of just how close their bodies were – it was like he could almost _feel_ Spencer’s presence right there, next to him. It shouldn’t be this silly, they’re just two friends sharing a bed, there’s nothing painfully significant about that, after all. But it was just the fact that it was _Spencer_ , and he was _right there_ , and he could almost just turn onto his back and _touch him_ , and it wouldn’t be weird at all, because he could lie and say that he just tossed around in his sleep, which was completely normal for a human being, and even more normal for –

“Derek?” Spencer’s whisper was tiny and barely audible but Derek heard it, and he _hm_ ed in response. He felt the bed dip slightly as Spencer probably turned onto his other side, where he now faced the back of Derek’s head. “Can I talk to you about something?”

Derek sighed a little, because he wanted to sleep, _damn_ he did, he was so tired from the flight, like he always was. But it was like because Spencer needed him; if only for a talk, his body had instinctively put off sleep because it could sense Spencer’s worry. _Sleep will come when you help him_ , it seemed to say, so Derek flipped over to lie on his side and Spencer was indeed looking at him, resting his head on one of his folded arms.

“What’s up, kid?”

Spencer’s naturally large doe eyes caught the small slivers of moonlight rippling through the crack in the curtains, and Derek could tell when he moved them, but not in which direction. Right now they darted here and there, as if he couldn’t look Derek in the eye when he spoke.

“I’ve – I’ve been having these, dreams. These _nightmares_.” He corrects himself. “It’s always the same – Maeve’s there, and she’s tied to a chair. I’m standing across the room, and she’s _right_ _there_ , and I could just go and untie her, and we could escape, together. I could feel it, like it was implanted in my mind, as if it was destiny written in the stars, and all I had to do was go and _save her_. So I do, and I move, and there’s a massive bang and I know it’s a bomb, but it sounds like the firing of a gun, and it’s like the light bursts from her, and I’m thrown back and awake, and only then do I realize that I was standing on the pacifier, and I was the only thing keeping her alive. The second I move is the second she dies. But I never realize it, and it was always me, and she always died, and it was always my fault. I could never save her, or speak to her, because all I could think about was how I have the chance to save her, and I was so wrong, and I always failed, and it was my fault that she died.”

“Spence, it wasn’t your fault that Maeve died.” Derek said, and the heat was rolling off Spencer now, as if that was possible. All Derek wanted to do was to reach out and touch him, touch his arm, his hand, his face; to reassure him that he was here, and he was going to stay here.

“But it was, and it’s just been a bunch of people telling me that my fact is wrong, and they keep telling me that, that I’m wrong and it’s not my fault, that I’m wrong – but I’m not. Because it was my fault that Maeve died. Her stalker was after me, and I didn’t give her what she wanted, so she killed Maeve.” Spencer was saying, and his voice was getting softer, but on the last two words they audibly cracked.

“Spencer.” Derek said and finally managed to get a hand out, and it touched Spencer’s hip, where his shirt had ridden up and his skin was warm underneath. “Spencer, look at me.” He had realized that Spencer’s breathing was shallow and he was probably close to a panic attack. “Spencer – just breathe. I understand if you blame yourself for Maeve’s death, I do. But you need to find it within yourself to forgive and forget. The continuous blame isn’t going to bring Maeve back. You need to be able to know that maybe, and I’m saying maybe because I want you to have the option to blame yourself, because I know you need that right now; that _maybe_ you were responsible for Maeve’s death, and you need to be able to be okay with that.”

There was a silence in which Spencer’s breathing did not change for the better, and Derek began to wander if he needed to get up and wake JJ, when Spencer took in a big breath and spoke.

“But I’m not.” Spencer says, and he breaks down into a sob, which Derek suddenly realizes was what Spencer had been holding in the whole time. “I’m not okay with it, because it was all my fault, and I don’t want to have these dreams anymore. I don’t want to see her die, night after night, knowing I’m responsible.”

“Hey, pretty boy, c’mere.” Derek said, wrapping his other arm around Spencer’s shoulder, and tucked Spencer’s head under his chin, where he could feel the wet on the collar of his shirt as Spencer began to properly cry. “It’s okay.” He murmured as Spencer pressed closer; body unconsciously clinging to Derek.

“I don’t know what to do, because I just want so much to be rid of her, but I loved her, I still _love_ her, I don’t know how I could love someone that much and let them die!” Spencer wrangles out, and it breaks Derek’s heart. “I love her and I killed her, how could I be okay with that?”

“You don’t have to be, Spence. Not right now.” Derek murmurs.

“Statistically, only 9% of women were stalked by other women, and out of those 9% only 13% of those were stalked by strangers. 76% of female homicide victims had been stalked by an intimate partner in the year prior to the femicide. 46% of stalking victims said their biggest fear was not knowing what would happen next, and 29% said their biggest fear was that the stalking would never stop.” Spencer began to ramble through hiccups and the dry heaving of breathes, and Derek knew it made him feel better – to make Maeve’s death generic, more understandable.

“Maeve isn’t a statistic, Spencer.” Derek heard, and then realized he had said it. He didn’t know why he said it – this was Spencer coping, this was how he was going to fix himself; but he knew that was definitely true, and if Spencer was ever going to move on from Maeve’s death, he was going to have to understand this. Then he starts again, of his own free will this time. “You’re stronger than that. You don’t have to turn her into a case. You’re allowed to be hurt, Spencer, to be –“

“Broken.” Spencer whispers, and whatever word came next dies in Derek’s throat. Then he swallows and tightens his grip slightly on Spencer’s hip, and Spencer whimpers a little and shivers under the pressure.

“You listen here, pretty boy, and you listen well. There is no such thing as _broken_. You’re not a pane of glass made to shatter; you’re not a crooked house, not a dang mirror in a tsunami. You’re flesh and blood and sure dang three-fourths miracle and a proper genius. You’re a human collection of experiences and falls and struggles and you are more than capable to accept a loss, even one as big as Maeve.” Derek’s thumb started unconsciously tracing circles around the jutting bone there on Spencer’s hip, warming and pinking the skin as his voice softened a little at the next sentence. “You’re just like those patchwork quilts Ma used to make when I was little – you’re coming together bit by bit with each day, and you’re never going to be completely finished, but you’re always growing and becoming more than the sum in parts, and you listen here, pretty boy –“ And at this he guides Spencer’s head so they’re looking at each other, and Spencer’s eyes are bright and wet, but he had stopped crying long ago. Derek’s voice was resilient, determined, but not forceful. “– _You are not broken, and you don’t need to be fixed.”_

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are lovely and help me improve, although thanks for reading either way :)
> 
> Also if you want me to continue from THIS (i promise proper boyfriend stuff next) please let me know
> 
> Here are the websites from which I got the information Reid rattled off:  
> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/31/fashion/31Unwashed.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
> 
> http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/brain_basics/understanding_sleep.htm
> 
> http://www.victimsofcrime.org/library/crime-information-and-statistics/stalking
> 
> And here is the absolutely beautiful and heartbreaking text post that helped me write the last bit of Derek's talk written by fantastic Amelia:
> 
> http://thefaultinourscarves.tumblr.com/post/61720197767/there-is-no-such-thing-as-being-broken-you-are


End file.
